The present invention relates to an organizational tool which facilitates the planning of meals in advance and which at the same time facilitates the shopping for the necessary ingredients of the pre-planned meals.
Meal planning and the shopping that is necessary therefor have longed proved to be a sometimes annoying and burdensome task for people who are preparing meals for themselves and/or their families. This is particularly true where the person responsible for planning the meals has a full or part-time job, as is often the case, thus limiting the time that is available for planning meals in advance and for organizing and doing the shopping that is necessary in connection therewith. Even where time is not the problem, the average meal planner is frequently at a loss as to what to prepare for meals, and furthermore, the average person is not usually educated as to what constitutes a balanced and nutritious diet. Although cookbooks may be used to give a meal planner new ideas for meal menus and at the same time provide information as to the ingredients necessary for making the meal, cookbooks per se do not provide a convenient means for planning a plurality of meals in advance. Quite to the contrary, a person armed with only a cookbook would really have no way of selecting a plurality of meal menus for use on a plurality of preselected future dates, and recording the information so that it would be always conveniently available.
The present invention overcomes this problem by providing a meal and market calendar that comprises a binder or book having a plurality of transparent pages, one for each month. Each page is in the nature of a monthly calendar, having indicia thereon defining a plurality of squares or blocks, there being, as in the usual monthly calendar page, five horizontal rows of seven squares or blocks each. Each square or block is provided with indicia indicating the numerical date of the day of the month, it being understood that since the page or sheet is transparent, the blocks and the date indicia thereon is visible from both the front and back side of the page. The present invention further comprises a plurality of labels that are adapted to be releaseably attached to each daily square or block, the labels being dimensioned so as to fit within each square or block, but at the same time configured and/or dimensioned so as not to cover the date indicia in said block. On one side of the label is a meal menu, while on the reverse side of said label there is a list of the main ingredients necessary to make the meal. Thus, any number of meal menus may be selected in advance and adhered to the calendar pages at the desired dates, it being understood that since the calendar pages are transparent, one simply has to look at the reverse side of the page to determine the ingredients that are necessary to make the meal that is on the opposite side of the label.
To further facilitate the necessary marketing for the meal ingredients, the book or binder of the present invention also includes a plurality of additional pages, each having a plurality of readily detachable envelopes thereon, each envelope having a shopping list printed thereon, whereby whenever the user goes shopping, he or she can check off the necessary ingredients on the shopping list, thereby facilitating the shopping experience. The envelope itself may be used to contain food coupons or the like which will be used while shopping.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an organizational tool in the nature of a meal and market calendar that greatly facilitates meal planning.
Another object is a provision of a meal and market calendar that helps organize and facilitate the shopping that is necessary to purchase the ingredients that are necessary for a given meal.
A further object is the provision of a device of the character described that facilitates the planning of more balanced and nutritional meals.
Still another object is the provision of a device of the character described that is relatively simple and economically feasible to manufacture, and which is beneficial to users both from a health and economic standpoint.
Other objects, features and advantages of the invention shall become apparent as the description thereof proceeds when considered in connection with the accompanying illustrative drawings.